global underworld

Underworld enjoys its occasional broadcast sessions from the duo's British studio so much that it is going to do them on a quarterly schedule. Listeners can tune in via Underworld's broadcast website to hear the live events, or they can come back later - on-demand-style. The schedule includes performances on June 11, Sept. 10, Dec. 10 and March 11, 2009. From then on they will happen the second Wednesday of each June, Sept., Dec. and March.

The new, quarterly events might also be heard on select radio stations throughout the world, though no deals have been yet firmed up. The duo started broadcasting select studio sessions in 2004, with a 2006 event at Sven Vath's Cocoon Club in Frankfurt being the duo's first performance webcast with TV-quality video. It reportedly drew 20,000 viewers.

"The first time we did a broadcast in the studio we could see thousands of people logging on," says Underworld's Karl Hyde. "We were playing our own tunes, jamming, chatting, we had a webcam up, a chat-room - people could talk to us. Rick was pulling stuff out of the archive that had never been heard - unreleased, unfinished stuff - oh it was such a buzz."

Adds Underworld's manager, Mike Gillespie, "We're very interested in the idea of the Long Tail and how that can work for a relatively small outfit like ours. Broadcasts allow us to develop our own language for and means of making regular appointments with people - encouraging interaction between fans, and between fans and us. The quarterly broadcasts provide a new platform for Underworlds increasingly prolific creative process. "